Lethal Pursuit

by Will Thomas

  “Are you getting this all down, PC Gaines? What else did they wear?”

  “Highly polished black boots. I believe their trousers were tucked inside them. Oh, and they wore matching caps with black patent-leather peaks in front.”

  “Clean shaven?”

  “I have no idea. The closest one was. They snatched my bag and ran off with it, throwing it back and forth as if they were in a rugby match.”

  “And where were you?”

  “On the ground. They tackled me.”

  Munro gave a terse laugh.

  “They took your bag after all your training?” he asked. He turned to Barker. “This is your prize student?”

  The Guv did not rise to the bait.

  “And what was in the bag, Mr. Llewelyn?”

  “Clothes, sir. A fencing uniform, to be precise.”

  “Was there a sword?”

  “No, that is back at the school.”

  “That is good news,” Munro said. “Whoever has been stabbing people this week does not need another weapon.”

  Barker nodded, agreeing. Then he stopped and looked up at him.

  “Did you say ‘people’? Has there been a second stabbing?”

  “There has. Come, follow me.”

  We followed him down the narrow halls, with PC Gaines trotting along behind. The commissioner led us down a set of steps to the lower floor. If I were not already familiar with the building, I would have known where I was by the heavy odor of carbolic.

  “The Body Room.”

  For some reason known only to the architect, this was what it was called rather than “the Morgue.”

  Munro threw the door open, and without preamble, warning, or preparation, he pulled the sheet from the corpse’s face.

  “Wessel,” I muttered.

  “Yes, Wessel. He met his fate in the Commercial Road. Did he have the bag, Barker? Did you give him the bag? Is it in fact gone?”

  My employer wasn’t listening. He was staring at the supine body of the professor.

  “No,” Barker murmured.

  “You maintain that the satchel is still in the vault in Cox and Co.?”

  “It is there. Sound as a pound sterling.”

  “The thought occurred to me that I might hold you over for a day or two, until the deadline for delivery to Calais is passed.”

  Barker nodded, a polite bow. “That is at your discretion.”

  “When is the deadline?”

  “That is at mine.”

  “Are you taking this seriously, Barker?”

  “I am standing in front of the body of an acquaintance of mine. I assure you this case has my full attention. May I examine the body?”

  Gently, he uncovered the torso. It was almost as white as the sheet, save for livid spots of purple.

  “Two stab wounds.”

  “Three,” Munro said. “There is one in the small of his back. Bad form. Only a coward stabs a man in the back.”

  I thought it likely that the ambitious commissioner of the Met had stabbed many men in the back during his career, but for once I held my tongue.

  “A dray cart man named John Hackett came running into ‘H’ Division early this morning,” Munro said. “He’d been parked at a curb, delivering his first load of hay at a livery in the Commercial Road. He was inside for a few minutes, talking with the stable owner and settling accounts. When he returned, there was a hansom parked behind him. The cab was mostly in the street and had stopped because the horse was eating his new hay. There were men and women talking in loud voices and gesticulating, and Hackett tried to pull on the horse’s bridle, asking for some help. They were able to draw the horse away with the offer of an apple, but when they looked inside the cab they found both the cabman and the passenger inside, dead, run through with swords. Inspector Meadows of ‘H’ Division theorizes that more than one man boarded and killed the two of them. At some point, the driver slipped off his perch into the front of the cab below. The horse, who had paced this route every day since she was a filly, came down the Commercial Road more than a mile before she saw the tempting hay, and since there was no driver to stop her, she wandered over and began to graze.”

  Munro moved to another sheeted form and exposed the head and shoulders.

  “Horace Quincy, fifty-four, cab badge number 672, lived nearby in Bethnal Green. Married, three children, one grandchild.”

  It was a jowled, heavy face, stubbly and lined, yet I could still picture the man cooing over his new grandchild. He might have driven Barker or me in the East End or the City. We went there often.

  Then I pictured a cab horse meandering down Commercial Road pulling a spectral cab full of bloody corpses. That included the body of Professor Wessel, who had quite possibly had the best evening of his distinguished career, and afterward was run through with two swords simultaneously. It was my fault. Not the running-through part, of course, but I had drawn him there with offers of money he never received or spent. I had convinced him to stay when the location had been unsafe. Then I had sent him off in a cab, knowing how dangerous it might have been to be associated in any way with the Barker and Llewelyn Agency. Come to think of it, perhaps I had run him through myself, at least metaphorically speaking. He wasn’t the first I had drawn to his death, nor would he be the last. Somehow, at Barker’s behest, I had become a sort of Grim Reaper.

  A constable put his head in the door, and whispered in Munro’s ear.

  “Ah,” he said after the constable was gone. “Your expensive solicitor stands in the front entrance, threatening mischief.”

  “You’re not keeping us, then?” I asked.

  He opened the door into the hall again and waved a hand toward the stairs at the distant end.

  “I don’t need to,” he said. “You run roughshod all over everything. You don’t need my help to get yourselves in trouble.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It felt as if all the air had been sucked from the room. Barker paced about the office, staring at the floor.

  “We couldn’t know,” I said.

  “We should have known.”

  My employer does not believe in chance. Somehow everything is in our hands, and if the worst happens he blames himself. One cannot talk him out of it, or reason with him, or even try to calm his soul. Perhaps the worst is that he will never talk about it. He bottles everything inside and stores it. How many bottles are in there? I wondered.

  For some reason, when Barker is wretched, he paces with his head down and his hands behind his back. I believe it is a holdover from his days as a ship’s captain.

  “Oi!” a boy cried, dashing in. “’Scold out there!”

  He slipped a note onto Jenkins’s desk and hopped about shivering while he waited for our clerk to open his drawer and give him sixpence. The tyke was underdressed in a thin jacket, but he owned shoes, so he was doing better than some who went about this time of year in rags wound round their ankles. After studying the coin he received to make sure it was genuine, he tugged at his cap and spirited himself out into the cold.

  I crossed to the door and closed it. Jenkins had securely locked the money box and was entering the room with the envelope presented on a silver tray. The latter was secondhand, probably purchased in Covent Garden. Were it sentient, I’m sure it would have wondered how it went from a mansion in Surrey to an enquiry agent’s office hard by Scotland Yard.

  We all met in the middle, Barker from his perambulations, I from the door, and Jenkins from his desk. Our employer snatched the letter from the salver and we all went our way without comment, save for a small grunt in the back of his throat.

  Snick.

  I liked that sound, a sharp, well-honed Italian dagger slicing through an envelope of expensive vellum. I raised my eyebrows.

  “Pollock Forbes,” Barker said. “His list of suspects.”

  “Shall I collate the two lists and type it for you?”

  “Aye, do,” he replied. “It will keep you from underfoot.”

&
nbsp; Somehow our near collision in the center of the room had become my fault. I sat, compared the lists, both of which had some of the same culprits in common, and began to type.

  Halfway through the newly revised list I fell into a blue funk and stared off into space, but soon got back to work. I pulled the paper from the Hammond, placed the battered typewriting machine under my desk, where I would batter it further, and then relayed the sheet to Barker’s desk.

  “Sir, I shall require an hour or two off.”

  The Guv’s brows sank like the evening sun behind his dark quartz spectacles, but it was more curiosity than pique. Reaching over the desk, I pointed to the final name of the list of suspects.

  “Rabbi Mocatta?” he demanded, as if I were having him on.

  “Apparently.”

  “You intend to confront your wife?”

  “I don’t know if ‘confront’ is the proper word, but her father is on a list of spies and murderers, and it is possible she knows why.”

  “I’ve known the man for years,” Barker rumbled. “He is a member of the Board of Deputies. I find it difficult to believe he could be involved in such matters.”

  “No less than I, sir. But as you yourself say, the human heart is capable of all sorts of wickedness.”

  “When did I say that?” he demanded.

  “Sunday, I should think. You are at your most Old Testament then.”

  “Very well, but please instruct your wife not to speak to her father concerning this matter.”

  “What about the manuscript, sir?” I asked.

  “I shall think and plan. Pray, make it obvious as you hail a cab that you are unencumbered by a satchel.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And armed! Shall you return?”

  “I cannot promise what will happen after the next hour.”

  “Then I shall speak to you later, lad.”

  I nodded and left. Raising my stick, I attracted a cab and clambered aboard, making it obvious to anyone who might notice me that there was nothing in my hand, no bulge in my coat, nothing peering from under my bowler hat. That accomplished, I sat back in the cab and thought.

  How could Rebecca’s father, that bookish little rabbi, get himself on a list of spies and assassins? Surely it must be some kind of mistake. I intended to ask Rebecca. She had been spending a good deal of time with him lately.

  When I arrived in Newington, Rebecca was still not at home. Mac was curious about my early arrival, but I put him off. She returned in half an hour. Harm, Barker’s Pekingese, scurried to the door, but when he recognized her, he wandered away. Like Barker, he found her vaguely suspicious. At the moment, I did, as well.

  “Thomas, you’re home early!” she said, breaking out in a smile as if my arrival were an unexpected gift. She saw my face, however, and it faded like a morning glory.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Let’s go upstairs and talk about it, dear.”

  The look of confusion and concern on her face made me feel cruel for even bringing the matter to her attention. I led her through into our sitting room, where she immediately threw her arms around me in fear. Her slight body was trembling.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Probably nothing,” I said. “Sit down. I’m sure it is a mistake. We have been gathering a list of suspects in the case we are enquiring after and for some reason your father’s name appeared on the list.”

  “My father? How could his name be on some sort of criminal list? It is absurd! It is, isn’t it? What sort of case are you investigating?”

  “Spy work, really. An agent was killed. We are to deliver a package to France. Actually, we are overdue, but the Guv works by his own times table.”

  “I wish I could think of some way to help you.”

  “Has your father been acting out of character lately? Is he less talkative? More secretive? Does anything appear to have unsettled him?”

  Then my wife did the last thing I expected her to do. She lowered her head and began to cry. She didn’t sob. It isn’t her way. She cries silently, and the tears seem to pour out of her, falling from her long lashes to the floor without trickling down her face. It was so unsettling to see that I would have climbed the Pennines just to make her stop. Of course, I leaped up and gave her my handkerchief and held her as the tears came and waited for her to stop.

  “I’ve been lying to you, Thomas.”

  Those were the worst words I could have possibly imagined her to say. I am pessimistic by nature even in the best of times, but still, it was a shock. Was it another man? Was she leaving me and visiting her parents for support? My life began to fray about the edges.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, a trifle huskily.

  “I haven’t been seeing my family while you are working. I’ve been helping out at Le Toisin d’Or.”

  “What?” I asked. “You’ve been working? Rebecca, I promise that I make enough money to keep us both. There’s no need for you to work.”

  “I wanted to surprise you. You should have a wife who can cook for you.”

  “I don’t expect you to cook, though I’m flattered you think it so important. I’m sorry if I spoiled your surprise. I merely asked about your father.”

  The tears began again. I gave her my handkerchief and held her. It wasn’t about the cooking, I realized. Her misery was about her father. Perhaps my concerns about him were not unknown to her.

  “What is happening with him?” I asked.

  She rested her forehead against my shoulder and wiped her eyes.

  “He won’t see me anymore. I’ve been cut off for marrying you.”

  “What?” I asked, astonished.

  “My mother won’t see me, either,” she continued. “My sister informed me and that is the last I have seen of her. Most of my friends have stopped coming to call, and are distant when I visit them. I am being shunned.”

  “Because you married me?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you told me a widow can marry whomever she wants.”

  “That’s true, but her family is not obliged to like it. Or her circle of friends.”

  I sat back and tried to take it all in.

  “Am I that objectionable?”

  “Of course not. You’ve been very polite to everyone. You’ve even participated in the holy days. You studied everything, tried to be friendly, and never put a foot wrong.”

  “What’s wrong, then?” I asked. “Your family struck me as nice people. A little distant, perhaps. Does the fact that I’m a Gentile concern them so much?”

  “Not a Gentile, Thomas. A Christian.”

  “You’re not making sense, Rebecca,” I told her.

  “If I were to convert from the True Faith to Christianity, it would be a great insult for my papa, both as a rabbi and as a father. It would be a blemish on his life’s work. It might be suggested that he resign from the Board of Deputies. You know his work is itinerant, that he leads synagogues that have no permanent rabbi or fills the position temporarily if another is sick or traveling. I fear he is not being requested or even made welcome now.”

  “Look, Rebecca, I said we’d decide what we would believe together. I certainly didn’t intend to push Christianity onto you. In fact, I offered to convert. The Lord knows my heart. I believe He’ll accept me in a synagogue as well as a church.”

  She patted my hand.

  “It’s not that simple, Thomas. It never is in Judaism. The worst thing I could do is convert, but even if you converted, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Christians who convert are not made particularly welcome. In theory, perhaps, but not in practice. You are not of the Chosen People, you see. Oh, men like Mac or your friend Israel Zangwill would defend you no matter what, but others will never fully trust a Gentile, no matter what the situation. Our people have been mistreated by Christians so much over the centuries that one who willingly comes among us must be a wolf stalking the sheep.”

  “But we joined Brother Malachi’s
Judeo-Christian church in order to please everyone.”

  “I know, but in doing so, we’ve pleased no one. If there were a gulf separating our religions, my relatives might feel safe, but they see Brother Malachi’s church as a kind of bridge between them. Not a welcome bridge, but a snare for gullible Jews. In short, a trap.”

  I put a hand to my forehead. “I never meant to do this. I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intent to drive a wedge between you and your family. We could reconsider a synagogue—”

  “No, Thomas!” Rebecca said, looking fierce. “The decision will be ours, no matter the consequences. I won’t be dictated to by my family.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve been going through this,” I said. “You should have told me.”

  She lowered her head again.

  “I was ashamed. Not of you in front of them, but of them in front of you. It is so small-minded. My sister would call it provincial. I suspect my parents have been warning her off. She and her husband are more dependent financially than I, you see.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “You’ve been sneaking away to slave in an ogre’s kitchen because your parents are too stupid to appreciate what a fabulous daughter they have?”

  She laughed through her tears. “Etienne is not an ogre.”

  “Have you looked closely, lately?”

  “Stop it,” she said, slapping my hand.

  “Tempest in a teapot, dear girl,” I told her. “We haven’t begun to fight back. We’ll go door-to-door until every Jew in London appreciates you as much as I.”

  “I wish it were possible.”

  “You just wait.”

  She sighed. “I will.”

  “But how is your father on this list?”

  “I have no idea, but I know this: he has a temper, as gentle as he may appear, and when it shows he is prone to make rash decisions. Then, rather than correcting them, he defends them to the death. I’m afraid that was how he lost a permanent position as a rabbi before.”

  “How do you think we should handle this?” I asked.